Saturday, the Huffington Post’s Martin Lewis, who bills himself as a “humorist” wrote a post wherein he practically begged the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to stage a military coup and arrest the President.
Well, he didn’t exactly say that. He actually pled for General Pace to somehow magically relieve George Bush of his powers as Commander-in-Chief and arrest him “militarily” but not actually overthrow him as the duly-elected President of the United States.
He rightly got dogpiled (the best takedown was by Ed Morrissey) last night and today, which make him just a bit irritable. So he fired back today with a post that simply bursts with literary puissance. His retort: It was satire, you cretins!
Anyone who has read “Gulliver’s Travels” (even the ‘Comics Illustrated’ version from Regnery Publishing for the “challenged reader”) is aware of a little thing called satire. Perhaps has even heard of Jonathan Swift.
But it appears that the only “Swift” that the right-wing nuts have heard of is the Swift Boat.
Swift = Smear they understand.
Swift = Satire…? Well, let’s just be charitable and say that it “eludes” them.
It “eludes” us, does it? Well okay. Let’s compare Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” to Lewis’…umm…”satire”.
In order for satire to work, the author has to stake out an entirely ridiculous position and defend it as both possible and plausible. That’s where the humor lies and where the ridicule he’s about to heap upon the heads of his victims starts to take root. In Swift’s case, the ridiculous position was that the Irish could make their economic lives better by setting aside a few thousand children for “breeding” and cook and eat the rest. Was it possible for the Irish to do this? Sure. It would have been wholly repugnant, but there wasn’t a power on Earth that could have stopped them.
Having established that what he suggested was possible, he spent his time defending its plausibility. That’s where the real bite of satire lies because it is in the arguments that Swift unleashes the criticisms that make us he real point of his essay and lets eventhe semi-interested reader know that this is a work of satire. For instance, Swift notes that Irish landlords should have no problem at all eating children because “…they have already devoured most of the Parents”, a brutal slash at the hearts of landlords who were serially abusing their tenants with punishing rents and draconian penalties for late payment. He also lays blame at the feet of England for it’s gross mistreatment of the Irish in another arch passage. The further he goes, the more his satirical seeds take root until at the end they burst forth and plainly reveal the real point of his essay – that the English could not call themselves a good people while the Irish suffered for no other reason than English apathy.
The serious point is made more forcefully because Swift embraces the ridiculous notion of eating Irish children wholly and earnestly. One can read his work as simply a satirical rationalization of a silly proposition or as a ringing slap in the face of his native England for its heinous actions. You can do that because he carefully planted the seeds of his indictment from the very beginning.
Lewis’ post has none of Swift’s intelligence or cogency. Indeed, it doesn’t seek to clearly indict any group at all. It closes with no revelation other than that he apparently has reading comprehension problems. While he does initially stake out a ridiculous position – pleading for a military coup to overthrow the President – he backpedals from it almost immediately. He says, and one can almost hear the puling tone of his words.
You can relieve the President of his command.
Not of his Presidency. But of his military role as Commander-In-Chief.
In those four words Lewis eviscerates any attempt at satire. Had he stuck to his guns and showed some artistic courage, he could have ably defended his work as satire. By cutting to the middle ground of “overthrow the President, but not really“, he removes the critical support of possibility. It is simply not possible to do what he asks the General to do. The Constitution – a document I suggest he read once in a while – flatly prevents it. Because his request is not possible, it’s impossible to defend as plausible, and simply isn’t satire.
Nevertheless, Lewis stumbles on and tries to defend his proposition as plausible by invoking the Uniform Code of Military Justice without bothering to find out whether the UCMJ even applies to the President (it doesn’t) or whether General Pace has the authority under the UCMJ to arrest a superior in the chain of command (he doesn’t). So blind is Lewis that he doesn’t even notice that the President doesn’t fit into one of the articles he quoted.
So how does he close? Well, he closes by pointing out that the President hasn’t won any medals while General Pace has won a lot of them. What point does that prove? How does that advance his satire? Not at all, though I’m sure it made Lewis a little squirmy in his sensitive areas when he pointed it out. But carnal satisfaction is not the goal of a piece of satire unless, I suppose, you roll it up into a tube shape and fill it with Crisco. Satire is not a selfish art because it aims itself outward and seeks to both inform and convince. Lewis, alas, does neither.
So, as it turns out, Lewis’ post which I prefer to think of as “An Ignorant Proposal” is based on an impossible premise and bolstered by an implausible rationale. That’s satire? That’s worthy of a comparison to Jonathan Swift? I am pretty sure that Swift would not have recognized Lewis’ work as satire. He might have used it as toilet paper, though, since that’s just about the most useful thing that can be done with it.
UPDATE: McQ at Q and O points out in great detail how earnestly Lewis defended his so-called satire in his own comment section. He delivers a coup of his own, except it’s the de grace variety.
Mr. Lewis, I’ve seen some pretty pathetic attempts to cover your ass in the 5+ decades I’ve lived, but this has got to rank right up in the top 3. In fact the word “pathetic” seems inadequate to the task of actually describing your effort in that regard. It is so transparently a lie that you would think you’d be ashamed for even offering it.
